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Monday, July 07, 2014

The Spoils of War, I Mean Vacation!

Well,

Another vacation is in the books and that means I spent a ton of money at California Hobby Shops. For the last three years now, my wife and I have vacationed with Robert and his family in Seal Beach CA. Each trip Robert and I get away from our lovely wives and families to do a little shopping of our own. Here is the haul from this year.

The total haul, about $400.00 worth of stuff

So the first store we hit was The War House, which has been around for ages. I first visited this store around 1988 or so and I think it is still owned by the same owner. This is a great little shop that seems to have a little bit of everything if your willing to sit and dig through items. There are old figures and merchandise covered in layers of dust and it feels like I am always on an archeologist dig while shopping there. Its funny, but I enjoy uncovering long lost items that I have not seen in years. Whats amazing is that most items are still priced like when they came out originally!The other great thing is that he still continues to bring in new items and I found this little set of books beneath a pile of old Flames of War boxes. So I got the D-Day slip covered books for $85.00. Unfortunately I did not find anything else on my shopping list, but I was happy with this find.

Score, two books I was looking for!

Our next stop was the World Famous Brookhurst Hobbies, a Orange County staple for many years. I cant remember the year I first visited Brookhurst, but they were on Brookhurst Way just before Garden Grove Blvd. The shop was tiny and was next to a hair salon shop. Well I always bring a ton of cash and a big list of wants when I visit Brookhurst, this time was no different.

First thing I picked up was two boxes of Perry Miniatures Afrikacorps. Now I resisted buying these since I have a ton a Artizan DAK figures and these guys are way too small. But since no one around here carries Artizan, I finally decided to build up some Parry DAK. Robert has two boxes of Desert Rats so I will have something to fight against that is the same scale.

More DAK!

Next up is a box of Plastic Soldier Company Panthers for my next FoW project. I was looking at buying at least 3 boxes of the new PSC Panzer III's but either they were sold out or did not have them yet, so I settled for Panthers.

Big Kittes!

Next were two Jagdpanthers for my Jagdpanther company I am working on. I wanted these two boxes because they come with a ruined building that I can use for terrain.

More Hunting Panthers!

Next is a box of Panzer IV/70's for my Panther project. Since I could not find a few other blisters I was looking for, I picked this box up to ease the pain of the blisters.

More Tank Hunter!

Next on the old shopping list was some 4Ground buildings. I was looking first for some 28mm old west buildings first, but they did not have the ones I wanted. So my second choice was 15mm buildings for FoW. I had picked out three nice buildings when Robert came up to me and said I should get the ruined buildings. Robert has a huge collection of Battlefront buildings, but what we were missing was some ruined buildings. So I picked up three ruined buildings in 15mm.

Building#1

Building #2

Building #3

Now besides hitting the hobby stores, the wife and I hit a Barnes & Noble since I forgot to bring a book to read while down at the beach. So I shot my brother a text and asked for a good book recommendation, he recommended The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. It is about this guy who accidentally creates a time machine that can only go forward in time in increments of 12, first 12 seconds, than 12 min, 12hours, etc. A good read but the ending was a bit flat, but I would say it was a 7 out of 10. It was perfect reading for the beach and I finished in about 2 days.

Opps I created a Time Machine!

The last item my son bought for me, knowing that I am a gamer, he found a large rock dice in one of the local stores on Main Street in Seal Beach. He told me if anyone gives me crap about my dice rolling, I should throw this dice at them or their models! LOL.

Big A$$ rock Dice!

So that was my haul from this trip to CA, I spent about $400.00 bucks on most items that I can not get here at home. Which leads me to a small rant about shops here in the valley.

It amazes me that I can always find what I am looking for in shops in CA as opposed to here in AZ. Most shops here in the valley have stopped carrying FoW since they can't keep up with all the items that Battlefront carries. I get it, what I would like to see is my local store actually order items in for me. I have tried many times to order from my local store but have had numerous special orders go missing. Heck I even order other items other than BF items to have them never come in. Whats the deal? Heck if the War House can get new Fow Items, why is my local store not getting them?

So in the end I will spend my money with folks that carry or can order the items that I am looking for. So if my money goes to CA so be it, I wish I could do that here at my local shop, but oh well I guess thats the way it is. Rant over.

Regarding FoW stock... there are certainly supply issues at the mo, I believe... they used to be NZ based but have shifted their production to Malaysia... now get this, my local store, who just started stocking FOW for local club, now has to place his order with a supplier based in Australia, and has to place a $750 order for it to be worth his while... so if you want him to order something , you have to wait till he has an order ready or pay expensive international shipping on top for him to get that one thing you need ASAP... its not good! And I think it irks at bit here with the game originating in NZ!